“Belina could have watched her,” Emmett says, wistful at the missed opportunity.
I nearly pull Ester out of her wrap so I can snuggle her close. Tears burn as I recognize their new nanny, Frances. She hurries into the room with a coat, backpack, and toy truck. She watched the Morris twins before they went to Jewish Community Day School in the fall. She would be at the same parks where Belina took Emmett. I often tagged along to observe children and parents, especially mothers, in action. Frances and I would exchange a look or two when Belina told us the latest Misha story. But there were good stories Belina shared about Alec as a father, which made me proud of him. Perhaps that was enough to persuade Frances to work for them.
“Ester has arrived,” I say to her. “Early.”
“I told you it’d all be fine,” Frances says, leaning close. “Is she sleeping? Can I see her?”
She’ll start crying, and Frances will know you’re a fraud.
She’ll tell all the other nannies, who will tell all the other mothers.
You’re cooked, girlie.
She’s lightly running a finger on Ester’s soft hat, and I pull back with intense panic. “Next time,” I say. “She’s not a good sleeper. Her days and nights are confused, I think.”
Frances gives me a sympathetic tip of the head as she adjusts her grip on the backpack, shoving the toy car inside. “She’ll grow out of it. Takes time.”
“He’s going to be late,” Misha says from across the room. “Love you, Emmett.”
His round face turns to his mother. I see the longing. The wish of love given differently, more.
Ester will look at you the same way.
You’re never gonna be what she needs.
“I miss her too,” Frances says to me. She reaches into her coat pocket and hands me a tissue from a small pack. I’m embarrassed to be crying again and can only nod. She squeezes my hand before returning to Emmett. “Let’s get your coat on, boss.”
Alec helps his son into his blue plaid Patagonia puffer, then crouches down to zip it up and hug him again.
Emmett nuzzles into the embrace, then takes Frances’s hand. His grin is toothy and wide, the glow from time with his dad lingering. “See ya, Devie. Bye, Devie’s baby!”
He hops to the entryway. Frances laughs lightly as he drags her along for the ride.
The door slams, and I don’t hesitate, putting myself squarely in Alec’s face. “You cannot go to jail. It will destroy him.”
His lower jaw sticks out, then quivers. “I know,” he mumbles as Misha lets out an exasperated grunt.
This sad-sack man is my friend, but that doesn’t change the times he’s frustrated me too. I know why I love him as a friend. How he helped me more than survive college but really thrive. Find happiness and freedom that on some level I hadn’t thought I deserved. If I’m honest, I sometimes think he was my friend because I had no qualms about helping him with his homework, all his homework.
But maybe that’s not fair. There are complex reasons for the friends we choose and when we choose them or they choose us. Perhaps I meant as much to Alec as he meant to me.
He’s always been open with me. I’ve seen heartbroken Alec at least a dozen times. Inactive Alec more times than I can count. From missed dinner reservations to ignored girlfriends to his senior thesis, he was always bumbling through, making it all work somehow. Honestly, he drives Jack crazy. But I owe my present life to this crying man accused of murder. Somehow, knowing Alec as I do, his current situation doesn’t feel as shocking as it should.
Standing next to him, I squeeze his hand. “Have the detectives told you anything?”
“You know how they build cases,” he says.
He’s right. Detectives aren’t even forthcoming with witnesses, let alone suspects. Alec won’t know anything until he’s behind bars and learning it from his lawyer.
Misha narrows her eyes at him from across the counter. “His alibi is the problem,” she says. “He was getting drunk at Ivy Tavern, but no one remembers him there. He paid cash for once in his life. The cop cameras on Hope Street were malfunctioning. It’s Alec’s word against, well, no one’s.”
Alec licks at his bottom lip, the sweat on his forehead a sheen in the pendant light over the counter. It’s as if we’re taking the bar again, and he’s as unprepared as before. Knowing he’ll fail but not being able to stop himself from doing what’s expected, believing it will all be okay.
Ester begins to stir and make those small, prescream noises. “I need to feed her,” I say, taking a step back. “Can we talk later?”
He hears her.
He knows she’s waking up scared of her terrible mother.
“Let me get your coat,” Alec says and follows me to the door.
He helps me into it, and his hand lingers on my arm. We stand in the dark entryway. I bounce Ester, trying to get her to sleep a bit more.
He takes a deep breath. “Can you do anything? You worked some tough cases in DC, right?”
You got run outta that job.
I could have helped him. Once. But every edge of reality is fuzzy. The control over my emotions tenuous. “Having this baby . . . it’s been difficult,” I say. “I’m not sleeping . . . she cries a lot. We both do.”
“They’re going to arrest me,” he says. “That damn blood.”
“The blood could be circumstantial,” I hear myself say, old gears from my first job in DC, which dealt with criminal evidence, turning suddenly in my mind. “If they don’t have a good motive.” I pause, waiting for him to look me in the eyes. “You weren’t sleeping with Belina?”
He glances away, across the sunken living room at Misha. Her back to us in the kitchen. “I didn’t cheat . . . I cared about her, but it wasn’t like, you know, an affair kind of thing.” Alec finds my gaze again. “I’d never hurt her.”
Belina didn’t mention anything inappropriate about Alec. She hardly mentioned him at all, other than a few stories about what a great father he was. She asked me lots of questions about him, our friendship. But I thought she was only curious about her employer.
Were you even looking that hard?
So obsessed with your pregnancy you ignored the truth.
“It’s the loneliness that’s hardest,” he says. “People staring. I hate leaving the house. But I hate having to stay in.”
I take his hand, the understanding a groundswell in my chest. “I saw Belina,” I say finally, out loud for the first time. “The day she was killed. She wanted to meet up that afternoon. My contractions started right after. I walked around until evening, trying to work through it, until I collapsed. I almost died having Ester. Then Belina did.”
“Oh my God,” he says, his eyes wide. “The same day? I didn’t know you almost . . . that it was so serious.”
He knows it should have been you.
The wrong life was taken.
You never should have lived.
Alec lets out a puff of breath. “But you saw Belina that day? Did she say anything about me?” he asks with hope, not fear.
I shake my head because it was a strange conversation. The whole interaction was fractured and fuzzy after the trauma of what followed.